


No Choice At All

by AuroraKant



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: And Mind The Tags On Each Chapter, Angst, BAMF Dick Grayson, Brotherly Bonding, Choose Your Own Ending, Dick Grayson's Harem of Older Men, Dick Grayson-centric, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Mind Control, POV Alternating, Questions of Morality, Suicidal Thoughts, Swearing, YeetDC2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:14:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24095686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraKant/pseuds/AuroraKant
Summary: When Dick gets hit by a spell during what should have been a standard drug bust, his world gets turned upside down.At least that is what his family says. Dick isn't sure he follows - being an obedient servant had always been his role in the family after all.aka Dick has to follow every order and command - his family doesn't like itat all
Relationships: Cassandra Cain & Dick Grayson, Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson & Damian Wayne, Dick Grayson & Everyone, Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Dick Grayson & Tim Drake
Comments: 100
Kudos: 704
Collections: escapism (to forget that the world is a burning hellscape)





	1. To Be The Person You Want Me To Be

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, my dudes!  
> I am back at my mayhem and I bring you this: A choose your own ending story!  
> At the end of this chapter I will tell you what you'll find where and I hope you enjoy it!  
> Great many thanks also to my beautiful girlfriend who betaed for me! <3  
> Also: there is some heavy stuff in here, and people not being nice to each other so look out for yourself! The back button exists!  
> Love, Kudos, Comments and Bookmarks make me very happy and are always appreciated! <3

Dick was fuming. He was pissed. He was fucking angry.

This had been his case, his job, and now fucking Red Hood had decided to stick his nose into it. And yes, Dick was well aware that normally their roles were reversed, that normally Jason was the one complaining about Dick being too annoying or too smothering. But this was something else.

Dick had asked Jason if he wanted to help during the case a week ago. He had called Red Hood up and offered him a place to stay and a job in the operation and Jason had _‘politely’_ declined. And Dick had been okay with that, all right? He knew how to deal with rejection by now. He was used to this. His family couldn’t care less about what he wanted when it came to spending time together, after all.

But now this? Showing up in the middle of a case, while Nightwing was already in the warehouse and just about to bust the smuggling ring? That was not okay. It was a fucking shitty thing to do. Something that could cost them the whole case. The whole supply and demand line. Everything Nightwing had worked on for four weeks.

“What, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, the fuck are you doing here?”

“Oh? Goldie doesn’t want to see me?”

“Hood, I am hitting you with this wingding if you don’t talk immediately. This is my case, and you had your chance with it. You didn’t take it; your fault, not mine.”

“Oh, but you didn’t count on one thing: You’re a tool.”

Dick glanced in the direction of the Red Hood, who was crouching behind a crate a few feet away, his shit-eating grin properly hidden by his stupid fucking helmet. Dick was really not in the mood for this. Not after the week he just had.

First the fight with Bruce about splitting his time between Gotham and Blüdhaven, then the yelling match he had gotten into with Damian about something his stupid dog did. Tim had still been mad about _something_ and since he and Babs were broken up, she wasn’t interested in helping him by telling him what it was all about either.

You know, Dick loved his family. He really, truly did, but after a week like this he wanted to shake them until they were forced to admit that he was just human too. That he was allowed to want things as well.

He should have stayed in California and never returned to Gotham at all.

“Hood. This is your last chance: What do you want? I told you to stay out of this if you didn’t want to work together!”

“I found new intel. They have a magic user in their ranks, and he is gonna be here tonight. Couldn’t reach you over the comms.”

Aw, shit.

“You’re still a tool, though. One fight with daddy and you’re a prissy bitch.”

“Thanks for the intel, Hood, but you either shut the fuck up, or piss off because I am not in the mood to deal with any of your bullshit.”

“Sheesh, calm down, big guy. You can use the support.”

“Yes, you can.”

Fuck. Dick twisted around at lightning speed, catching Hood doing the same thing out of the corner of his eyes. Behind them stood a shadowy figure, its proportions being twisted around every time you blinked. The magic user. Shit.

Dick had been so focused on his conversation with Jason that he had failed to follow the very first rule of being a vigilante: Always be aware of your surroundings. And judging by the panicked grabbing motion Jason made in the direction of his guns, he had been found unaware as well.

“Nice meeting you. I think I’ll go now!”

Dick did his best in dodging out of the way of the magic blast sent in his direction, managing to flip behind the crate that had functioned as his hide-out. Which meant that he jumped right into the middle of the smuggling ring Nightwing had stalked from his former vantage point.

“Hi, guys. Sorry to bother you, but I think your meeting is over now.”

Nightwing could hear a gun going off and hoped that Red Hood didn’t kill the magic user before Nightwing had a chance to ask him what the hell he was doing with a bunch of crooks smuggling guns. But until then Nightwing had to focus on punching the man in front of him – one of the dozen guys occupying the warehouse – before he could shoot him. Dick really didn’t need a gunshot wound on top of everything else right now. Or ever.

They were just lucky that the other group of criminals hadn’t made their appearance yet, even if it meant that the whole case was done for, because Red Hood and Nightwing might be able to battle ten guys and a magic user, but they would definitely be overpowered if another dozen guys with guns showed up.

And they truly did their best. Nightwing could see Red Hood join him from behind the crates, the magic shadow guy nowhere to be seen. He could also hear the shots being fired, too tired to care if Hood abided to the Code. He would have to trust his brother. _Hah_.

Some crook closed in on Nightwing, and he dropped low, kicking the legs out from under the guy before he could react, and used his escrima to knock him out. It was laughingly easy to beat these assholes, and when Dick looked around, he saw that the only two still left standing were engaged in a fist fight with Hood. Good. A few bruises wouldn’t hurt Jason’s ego.

Which left the magic user. Nightwing stood up from his crouch on the floor, sending a curious look in the directions of the crate, when he felt an electric crackle in front of him. He was barely able to shift into a fighting stance before the world turned upside down in front of him and the shadowy figure appeared.

“Nightwing. Hello.”

Nightwing didn’t hesitate this time, launching an aerial attack before the magic user could react. He flipped over the hood of the dark cloak, hitting the figure twice with the electricity of his escrima turned up to full capacity. He wasn’t really in the mood for banter.

The magic user stumbled back, the hits destroying his balance – and hopefully his magic abilities as well.

“Good job, Goldie.”

“Shut the fuck up, Hood, and finish them off!”

“Bo-“

Before Dick could end his attack with a knee to the crotch of the magic user – something that hurt no matter the sex – the shadowy figure dissolved again. Damn. Dick had really hoped he could no longer do that.

A shiver ran down his spine, goosebumps appearing on his skin. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.

“Wing! Behind you!”

“You, Nightwing, are truly a _tool_. And you shall feel what my wrath tastes like!”

Dick turned around and what had previously been a creepy shadowy figure, was now glowing, growing, its dark tendrils touching his flesh, his hands, his head.

“No…”

“ _Tu instrumentum. Es stultus. Audi, non pugnant. Qui autemanimo non est de aliis_.”

The words reverberated in Dick’s mind, like an echo or a song stuck in your head. It felt weird. But before he could focus on that, the shadow monster vanished, passing through Dick one last time before there was nothing left of the creepy bastard besides a stale taste in Dick's mouth.

Hood appeared by his side, concern evident even without Dick being able to see his face behind the hood:

“You okay? Shit, that didn’t look good.”

“I…”

He wasn’t okay. No, Dick could feel that something was wrong.

Very, very wrong.

“I’m not sure… Hood?”

He was burning. Fire ants were crawling on the insides of Dick’s skin, his whole body feeling as if it was splitting in half. He had been standing, Dick was sure of it, but now he was crouched on the floor, Jason supporting him, saying things that were no longer reaching Dick’s ears over the roar of pain breaking him apart.

“It… h-hurts… J- I…”

Dick wasn’t sure if he was talking at all, he just knew that his brain was melting, his ears bleeding, his insides rotting away. Every inch of his body felt tortured, but the worst, oh the worst, was his mind.

It felt as if one layer of Dick Grayson was destroyed after the other. Like a hot poker was pierced into his very essence, forcing itself deeper and deeper into what it meant to be Dick, burning it as it went. It felt as if he was losing himself, as if someone was using a needle and thread to build him back up all wrong again.

It felt as if he was dying-

“Nightwing? Dick! Fuck. Shit! Red Hood to Cave. Emergency Alpha, Nightwing is down. I repeat: Nightwing is down. We need immediate evac!”

Dick let the darkness take him. It felt good. It felt like giving up.

Waking up was a slow process. A weird one, too. Weird because he felt fine. There was a slight headache thrumming behind his closed eyes, but if Dick remembered all the other instances in which he had woken up in the Cave after losing conscience correctly, a light headache was barely anything on the barometer of pain.

He wasn’t all there yet, however, breathing with his eyes closed still easier than facing the world around him. He could hear the others talk, and by the sound of it, all of them had gathered around just to stare at him. Dick felt honored, honestly. Even if their voices still sounded like an indiscernible mush to him.

“So, what did you say happened again, Hood?”

“I don’t know. We were fighting some bad guys, then a magician showed up, blabbered some words in Latin, I guess, bathed him in shadow and was gone!”

“Have you called Zatanna yet, Father?”

“She said she would only be able to come by in a few days time. A mission in outer space. And I don’t trust Constantine with this.”

“Is anyone else concerned because of the giant sigil burned into his chest. Just me? ‘kay…”

“Zatanna will surely know what to do, yes?”

A sigil? Well, that sounded ominous. But he liked the sound of their voices, all so civil to each other, so he continued to let them wash over him, even as they became clearer and clearer. It was nice to just listen. It was almost as if he wasn’t there at all.

“Or maybe we can just ask Grayson if he knows what happened to him.”

A tiny hand was touching his arm, fingers Dick knew all too well. Damian, it was Damian who tried to wake him up.

“Grayson? Wake up!”

Dick’s eyes flew open. The Cave was bright, hurting his eyes and it took a moment for him to be able to see the concerned faces of the people surrounding him. They were truly all here. Or at least most of them.

Damian was standing on the right side of the bed, his hand still lightly touching his arm, Bruce and Alfred behind him, the former with his arms folded, the latter with worry written on his face. On the other side of the bed was Tim, flanked by Cass, both of them sharing the same look of intrigue and fear. Dick wanted to reach out and clean it away with some spit and a hug. He didn’t though, his eyes suddenly finding Jason, who had positioned himself as far away from the bed and as close to the next exit as possible, looking everywhere but Dick.

“Hi?”

“Dick, you’re awake.”

“Yes?”

“Good.”

Bruce sounded like Bruce always sounded after one of them got hurt: Like a constipated elephant. But Dick liked it. Liked how all of them were looking at him.

“What happened?”

Dick’s memories of what had ended with him in the med bay were wonky at best. He had been on a case, in Blüdhaven, and Jason had been there. Something with magic maybe? But whenever Dick’s thoughts wandered too far in the direction of that particular topic his brain sent a shiver down his spine. Better leave it alone then.

“You were hit by a magic spell. We don’t know what the purpose of the spell was, since you are bodily unharmed besides the magic sigil burned into your chest.”

“What?”

It was Tim who reacted when Dick couldn’t quite comprehend what Bruce had just said. He felt fine. And there was nothing to indicate that anything else was going on. His chest didn’t even hurt. But the picture Tim shoved in his face was certainly depicting his abs and his chest, with a dinner-plate circle burned between his left and right nipple.

“What is written on it?”

“We have no idea. None, whatsoever. Which is why we need a magic user.”

There was bitterness in Tim’s tone, directed at Dick, and Dick had no idea what to do about that. So, he did nothing, waiting for them to continue. And Bruce did:

“I already called her, Tim.”

“Yeah, but-“

“How do you feel, Master Richard?”

Alfred. Dick’s gaze turned so he could see the butler, unable to explain the horrified shudder that went through his body at being addressed as a ‘master’.

“Fine. I feel fine.”

“Really? Because you were screaming your head off when the spell hit you.”

Jason. Dick turned around again, focusing on Jason instead, even though he couldn’t remember whatever Jason had just referenced.

“No, really. I am fine. Surprisingly so, if I may say so myself. Normally I feel like shit when I wake up in the Cave.”

An appreciative murmur went through the group of attending Bats, all of them more than familiar with the sensation of barely being alive while laying on a gurney in the med bay.

“Well, that’s good to know. Since you’re not dying anymore, I’m gonna go fuck off, before B remembers that he wanted to yell at me. Bye, Dickhead, and lie the fuck back down, before Demon brat faints out of worry.”

“Okay.”

Dick, who hadn’t even really processed that he had started to sit up while they were talking, complied happily. Laying back down sounded like a great idea.

“What?”

Jason had stopped on his way out of the room, his gaze trained on Dick, similarly to most of the family, who had also chosen to stare at him. Again.

“Hm?”

“You laid down.”

“Yes, it was a good idea.”

Dick didn’t understand why all of them were looking at him like this. It had been a good idea, he had been hurt, after all, and it was important to rest afterwards. But Jason wasn’t done yet:

“Dick, the last thing you said to me before you broke down screaming was a ‘shut the fuck up’ after I complimented you.”

“Oh, then I am very sorry about that.”

And Dick truly was sorry about that. He wasn’t supposed to talk to Jason like that. But his admission only furthered the concerned expressions on his family’s faces, clear worry written on all of them. It was Cass, who seemed to come to a conclusion the fastest, her voice even when she spoke:

“Why don’t you like it when Alfred talks to you? Answer.”

So, someone _had_ noticed his slight flinch when Alfred had said _those_ words. Dick wasn’t really surprised, Cass was one of the best after all, and nothing ever escaped her sharp eyes:

“He called me ‘Master’ and that is a word unbefitting of me.”

“Why?”

“Because that would indicate a higher social standing than him, and I am neither higher in standing than him or than anyone else. I am here to be used, after all.”

Bruce flinched back at the words. And he wasn’t the only one. Dick could see the utter shock radiating from all of them. But why? Dick had just spoken the truth. He was here to be used. A weapon, a tool, a human chess piece.

“Dick, you are my son. Of course, you are… Alfred calling you Master has nothing to do with your worth or his worth. Right, Alfred?”

“Absolutely, sir. But I can refrain from calling you _that_ , if it truly is bothering you, Ma- Richard?”

“Only if you want to.”

His answer didn’t seem to satisfy the men, but Dick had no idea how to solve this problem. They wanted something from him, some assurance that he was… what? Dick had no idea.

“Then I think I _might_ want to do that from now on…”

Alfred sounded so defeated and Dick didn’t like it. But what could he have done differently? What was he supposed to say? To do? If only they would tell him. If only he knew what to do next. In the corner of his eyes, he could see Tim converse with Cass, telling her something, but Dick was too focused on Alfred – and then Damian – to try to listen. The boy’s grasp on his arm had tightened over the course of the last few minutes, and slowly it was becoming painful, even though Dick didn’t even try to free himself.

“Is there something you need, Dames?”

“I need you to be normal again, Grayson!”

“I don’t think I understand what you mean… I am normal?”

“No! You’re not. You didn’t curse, you didn’t joke, you didn’t try to destroy my hairstyle or hug me. You didn’t even make a snide comment about Father!”

Dick was so, so lost, and by the looks of it, so was Damian. He just wished he could do anything to ease the turmoil the boy was feeling.

“But why would I do that? I only touch you if you want me to. Anything else would be inconsiderate. Impolite. Unbecoming.”

“Argh!”

Once again, Damian wasn’t happy with whatever Dick had said, ripping his hand away from his arm, stomping off into the distance. Dick felt a surge of dread well up inside of him. He had made Damian sad or angry. He had hurt someone. It was a horrible feeling, the pain of displeasing Damian almost physical in the way his heart contracted, and his breath caught.

But before Dick could dwell on that feeling, Jason asked for all their attention:

“So, that’s it, isn’t? The spell turned Dick into some sort of puppet? Wonderful! Exactly what we needed: A Dick Grayson who is even more of a Daddy’s boy than previously!”

“Oh, shut up, Jason! This is serious, and this is fucked up.”

Tim was the one who shifted in his position to oppose Jason. Dick could only watch with wide eyes and a sense of unease in his gut as the drama unfolded:

“Oh, why? Because the Golden Boy just lost his ability to say no? It’s not as if he had it to begin with anyway!”

“You don’t understand! This isn’t Dick! At least not the one we know! I mean, look: Dick, tell me a secret about yourself that you never told any of us before!”

“Deathstroke wants to bang me. Which is weird because he is a bad guy and like 40 years older than me, but he buys me flowers sometimes and I went on a date with him once because I needed the information he had.”

“What?”, Tim exclaimed.

Whatever had been going on between Jason and Tim came to a screeching halt when the words that left Dick’s mouth registered. It was nice of them to shut up, especially since he couldn’t seem to stop now that he had started to talk about all these tiny things, he had never told them before:

“And he isn’t the only one. M, Apollo and Tiger also kind of want to fuck me. I use it to get tips, intel, and a dinner if I don’t have enough money left from my day job to buy food.”

It felt good to get rid of all these secrets. Dick couldn’t quite grasp why he had ever kept them all in the first place:

“I mean sometimes I hate it that everyone always just sees my body and thinks it’s their property, but if I can use it, why shouldn’t I? I just stopped doing that for a while after Mirage and Tarantula, but you can’t let yourself be stopped by stuff like that in our line of work.”

“What happened with Mirage and Tarantula?”

Bruce's voice was dangerously low, when he asked. Dick felt a giant weight lift from his heart when he answered:

“Oh, they raped me. And Tarantula was immediately after Blockbuster, so, I guess it was my punishment for killing him. Still, touch was a bit iffy after that. Maybe that is why I agreed to do the job of infiltrating the Secret Society of Supervillains. I mean, I definitely tried to kill myself after the Chemo attack and I don’t know if that was because of Tarantula or, you know, pretending to be a bad guy for half a year.”

All of them were just standing there, staring at him, and Dick realized that they truly had known nothing about any of these things. What a shame. And he had so much more to share:

“And that wasn’t even the only time. I think, I tried it too after Bruce threw me out when Jason died – sorry, Jason – or after I killed the Joker because how could Bruce love me, a killer. Bruce, do you love me? Sorry, dumb question… where was I? Oh, I mean, taking up the Cowl was also a close offender to-”

“STOP!”

It was Tim that screamed the word, tears running down his face, and Dick fell silent almost instantly.

“Please, stop… I am so sorry, Dick. I am so, so sorry.”

Tim was hugging him now, and even though Dick had no idea why or how he had earned this closeness, he let himself be hugged, even returning the embrace when Tim clung to him tighter. He didn’t know what was so bad, why Tim was so sad. He just told them a few of his secrets, and there were so many more left. Dick wasn’t supposed to have any secrets.

“I shouldn’t have forced you to say any of that. And I am so, so sorry that I made you. Promise.”

“Of course, I love you, chum. Of course, I do…”

Bruce was standing behind him now, a hand on Dick’s shoulder, supporting him. Dick was still unable to grasp just why they did it, but he would take any friendly touch he could get. The guilt of making first Damian and then Tim sad was still making him feel weak, and the presence of others helped with that.

“Bruce? Get Zatanna to the Cave as fast as humanly possible.”

“I’m on it.”

They were all so serious, but Dick would take it if it meant that all of them were currently by his side – minus Damian – and cared for him. It felt decadent to be the center of attention, it was the highest praise a weapon could get after all: Adoration before usage.

* * *

Tim glanced at Dick, who was sitting at the table happily drawing in a coloring book Damian had presented him with. The guilt in his stomach made him want to throw up, but that would help no one, least of all Tim himself.

They had learned a few things over the last few days, through a series of try and error experiments that left all of them feeling like the biggest bitches in the universe. But they needed to know what Dick could and couldn’t do, and what orders he would follow and if there were any he could ignore.

The answers were devastating. Their research found that Dick had basically no agency of his own at all. He still had opinions and feelings and things he liked or disliked, but you just had to tell him to do something or to want something else and he immediately did it. He immediately changed himself to fit your wishes.

Or to spill his best kept secrets just because you told him to.

They also knew that he rarely did anything without prompting. You could tell him to sit down and eat breakfast with you, and he would eat breakfast like a normal person did, but if you told him to spend his afternoon after his own desires, you would most likely find him sitting on a couch or a chair looking at nothing with an idle look on his face.

They had had to find a compromise, and that compromise was cruel to both Dick who had no say in it, and to the person who had to enact it: There always had to be someone watching him, to make sure the spell did nothing worse, and you had to keep him occupied. That meant finding something that he would be ordered to do and make sure that whatever it was, didn’t exploit him or make him hate you when this horror show was over.

For example: You shouldn’t force him to spill all his secrets in front of his family while he had no filter or self-preservation.

Which was why Tim couldn’t quite drown out the feeling of guilt that had clung to his skin ever since they had found out. Ever since Tim had forced Dick to do the unimaginable. He wished he could delete those few minutes from the collective memory, make sure that nobody remembered all those things Dick had said.

It wasn’t their place to know about these things. It wasn’t Tim’s place to force Dick to talk about them.

Especially since Tim had no idea what to do now. What to do now that he knew just how much his brother hurt. How much pain he had suffered through without any of them noticing.

He couldn’t go and tell Dick that he loved him or that he was happy that Dick hadn’t killed himself or that he was scared for him or that it was horrible that Dick had never felt secure enough to tell them about the fact that he’d been raped. Twice.

All Tim could do was sit here and watch, guilt eating on him, because he forced something in the open that had only been Dick’s. Dick’s secret to tell. Dick’s burden to carry. Dick’s trauma to share. And Tim had taken that away from him.

God, he was so sick of himself.

Especially since it had been an accident, something he had only said to make Jason understand. And to maybe hear Dick confess to allowing Damian to destroy Tim’s Minecraft village. He never intended for this to happen. He had just… he had just tried to prove a point. And his brain had malfunctioned, making that horrid command, without realizing that they were heroes. Each and every one of them carried secrets so heavy, a person shouldn’t be able to carry them alone. And yet they all did.

Still, they had to find things to occupy him with, since a spell-bound fidgeting Dick was somehow worse than a normal fidgeting Dick. When it was Tim’s turn to watch over him, he liked to make Dick draw. It was an easy exercise, nothing too complicated, and it was silent. There was a low chance of Tim being forced to talk to Dick and accidentally ordering him to do something horrible. Again.

This was the best option for both of them, even if it left Tim feeling antsy as he watched over his big brother.

The mood in the Manor had been weird since Jason brought Dick home, a certain spark of life missing from the premise.

Dick for one was always happy, always there to please, always there to help you. And… and Tim found it creepy as hell. It was weird in a way, because Dick _was_ the happy one, he _was_ the one who would help you with a smile on his face, he _was_ the one who was always there for you--- but not like this.

Not this inhuman happiness. This fake full of smiles and love.

Tim wanted his real brother back, the one he had taken for granted. The one who would smile at Tim, ruffle his hair, and say ‘Get over yourself, Little Bird’.

And it would be so much easier to feel all of that, if Tim didn’t also know that even the Dick he remembered was fake. That his smiling, hugging brother was just as constructed as the brain-washed version sitting at the table was.

Because as much as Tim wanted to forget what Dick had said when the spell forced him to talk, Tim _had_ heard it. He _had_ understood what Dick had said, and he _had_ understood that Dick wasn’t done with spilling his secrets. Not by a long shot.

Dick wasn’t as happy as he liked them to believe. He wasn’t as happy or healthy or leveled as they liked to think. He was just a broken boy, just like the rest of them, only better at hiding it. Only better at keeping it down.

Dick had been lying to them, and just because Tim now knew the truth, didn’t mean he had to like it.

Didn’t mean he had to be able to deal with the truths spilled.

Tim had hoped that Zatanna would have an answer, but all she had had, were tear-stained eyes and a promise to find every magician and sorcerer she could think of, who knew how to break powerful sigils.

And the worst of it? Some part of Tim wondered if Dick wasn’t happier like this. If a Dick happily drawing unicorns in a picture book for kids wasn’t better off than a tired Dick hiding his suicidal tendencies and trauma under a myriad of smiles.

It was a horrible thought, but one Tim only had, because he honestly didn’t know what he would do in this situation. How he would feel if his depression was suddenly gone and the price he had to pay for that to happen was his free will. Because, could you even miss something you don’t remember having?

Did Dick even know that he was no longer the same? That he had nothing in common with the person he had been barely a week ago?

What would Tim choose? He honestly had no idea.

Tim closed the book on his lap. He hadn’t been reading it anyways and he no longer felt like trying.

* * *

Dick was smiling. Today was one of those unreal days, the days Dick wasn’t really sure were actually happening.

He had them a lot. Or at least he thought he had them a lot. He couldn’t be sure.

But some days his thoughts just wouldn’t focus and his gaze could never quite settle.

It didn’t matter that Tim or Bruce or Alfred or Cass were nice enough to give him something to do. No matter what, he would be a tiny bit lost, a tiny bit less himself on these days.

These days were also the only days that filled Dick with wrongness when someone gave him a simple order and told him what to do. It was weird. Dick was made to be used; he was a weapon. A tool. And yet…

On some days his heart told him not to be what he was created for. On some days a voice whispered in his head, yelling, screaming, crying, so faint that Dick should be able to ignore it if he only wanted to. But something told him that the voice was important. Something told him, that there was something wrong.

But only on some days.

Only on the days Dick didn’t feel real.

Only on the days Dick wasn’t sure existed.

* * *

Bruce was devastated. And no matter how long he stared at Dick cleaning the windows, the feeling wouldn’t go away.

Zatanna had called him earlier that day, telling him that whatever had been done to Dick hadn’t been some one-off attack. It had been planned. Dick had been the target, the spell only insignificantly changed to fit the situation in which it had been casted. And that made it so much harder to break.

Bruce didn’t know what to do anymore.

His heart broke every time his eyes caught a glance of Dick happily following along with instructions, of being obedient, submissive, or otherwise not himself. Bruce knew – remembered still – that Jason thought of Dick as the obedient one, as the one who followed all of Batman’s rules. And Bruce knew that he was the reason that idea persisted, but he could still remember Dick as a child. Not even scared 9-year-old Dick Grayson had ever been anything close to well-behaved. He was a hurricane as a child, a terror as a teenager, and a force to equal Bruce as a young man.

And now… now he smiled when you told him to clean and thanked you for letting him exist.

Bruce felt sick to his stomach.

“I cleaned the windows. What should I do next?”

The worst thing was that Dick still sounded like himself. That there was a tilt to his voice so inherently Dick Grayson, that Bruce hoped for a moment each time that Dick was himself again, that Dick was just playing a prolonged prank on all of them. And Dick might have been a prankster and a world-class actor, but he wasn’t that good. Nobody was that good.

“Thank you, Dick. Would you be so nice and help Alfred in the kitchen, please?”

“Sure, B. It’s a pleasure!”

Bruce had started to hate that grin that very first day down in the Cave, when Dick had spilled his secrets smiling and without a hint of hesitation. Now, a fortnight into this nightmare Bruce had to stop himself from ripping it off Dick’s face.

Because this wasn’t his son. This was a pretender wearing his body, his smile, his mind. His experiences. But not his soul, not that tiny spark that made him Dick. Because this wasn’t a well-rounded person with feelings, and dislikes, and bad sides. It was a puppet, completely controlled by the strings in its family’s hands.

Dick hadn’t even protested when Bruce pulled him of the patrol roster, for fucks sake!

No, his son had just smiled and nodded and said it was probably a good idea. Alfred hadn’t been happy with Bruce when he found the hole he had punched into the wall. But Bruce wasn’t really sorry. He had to choose between his son’s face or the wall, after all, and Bruce would never hit his son if he wasn’t capable of hitting back.

And Dick couldn’t hit back. He was incapable of that. They had figured that one out the hard way, when Cass decided to spend her mandated Dick-time by sparring with him, only to have to stop after Dick only vaguely blocked her attacks, never defending himself or actually fighting.

But not giving him something to do was so much worse, Bruce found. Because some part of him could still pretend it was his son wandering through the house, it was his son whistling or cleaning or drawing or performing some other safe activity, but if nobody gave Dick an order, Dick would just sit there and stare, his eyes miles away, the smile frozen on his face.

Bruce might be a monster for ordering his son around while he had no will of his own, but he couldn’t bear the complete lack of anything that befell Dick when there was no one to submit to.

Bruce missed their fights, missed the feeling of trust he had in Dick. Because, yes, they were constantly fighting, Dick was always disobeying him, but Bruce needed that. He needed a foil he could play off; he needed a trusted lieutenant who made him question his own decisions and plans. He needed someone to keep him on his toes. 

And he needed someone he could express his guilt to. Because those secrets Dick had spilled? Apparently, Bruce hasn’t known his son as well as he thought he did. Apparently, Bruce still had so much to learn when it came to letting his children talk to him about their problems. The flood of words in the Cave had left him dumbfounded, but now that Bruce knew, now that he had been forced to confront the unsavory horrors Dick had survived, it itched him to take control, to solve the problem and make everything alright again.

He had bought books on the matter, asked Clark and Diana just what to do, but neither could give him a definitive answer. And still, Bruce planned on fixing this, planned on making sure that Dick would never have to suffer through something like that ever again.

But for that to happen, he needed his son back. For that to happen, Dick Grayson needed to be a person again. And Batman would do anything to make sure that would happen.

* * *

Dick woke up to the sun shining in his face, to the curtains being drawn. He felt refreshed, ready for the day ahead of him.

He felt happy.

“Good morning, Richard.”

It was Alfred who woke him up, and Dick greeted him with a smile and a cheerful “Good Morning”. It didn’t clear away the rain clouds hanging over Alfred’s expression, but Dick still hadn’t lost hope that he would manage to make everyone in the Manor happy one day. That they would stop looking sad while spending time with him.

He would make sure that they could be just as happy as he was someday.

“Get ready, please, Richard, and it would be very much appreciated if you could sort the books in the upstairs library.”

Dick stretched his stiff limbs, getting out of bed with a bounce in his step. Of course, he would do it. This was his place after all. It was cute how Alfred always made sure to voice his orders as requests, even though they both knew that Dick was more than happy to comply. He felt whole when he followed a command, he felt warm and content and right.

It was his place. It was his reason for existing. It was the way he was meant to be used.

“I’m on it, Alfred!”

And if there was a silent voice inside his head, groaning ‘But that is sooo boring’ then nobody needed to know.

* * *

Damian had never been so angry in his entire life.

Or maybe he had, but not in a long, long time. Especially not because of Grayson. No, Grayson was the one person who didn’t make Damian want to chew someone’s head off. He was the one person he could always count on; the one person Damian knew would always be there for him.

And now Grayson had been switched with this Zombie. This, this… imposter, this fake, this… this NotGrayson. And Damian hated him. So, so much.

So, yeah, Damian was happy that he hadn’t been put on Grayson Watch, had been happy that he didn’t have to spent time with the fake. He enjoyed being free of the company of the imposter.

Until now.

There had been an Arkham outbreak which required all hands on deck, Alfred in the med bay and nobody trusting the imposter to handle himself. Which meant that Damian, who had suffered a sprained ankle on patrol the day before thanks to Drake’s incompetence, was now stuck in the Manor with a man who looked like Damian’s brother and a lost puppy had a lovechild.

And Damian didn’t plan on ending up like the others. Like Drake, Pennyworth, Cain or even Father, who had sunken so low, that they ordered the fake Grayson around. Who were so weak that they used the imposter to do the dishes or clean their room.

No, Damian was better than that. Damian wouldn’t use Grayson, even if the man wasn’t really _his_ Grayson anymore. Because losing one’s free will sounded like the most horrible of tortures Damian could imagine, and he could imagine - and lived through – a great many tortures. And Damian might be capable of doing great things, horrid things, but he wasn’t cruel. He wouldn’t use the one person who loved him unconditionally like that.

Which was why they were currently engaged in a staring match, their eyes never straying. The fake’s because Damian hadn’t given him something to do and Damian’s because he was trained in endurance and meditation.

But that was getting boring fast, and Damian would deny it if asked, but the unseeing eyes of his mentor started to unnerve him.

“Do you think Pennyworth has cookies in the kitchen?”

NotGrayson blinked once or twice, before his gaze returned to the present, his eyes settling on Damian.

It was always weird to see the shift happen, since it felt a bit like waking a robot from its stand-by mode. Suddenly the lights were bright again in the house of Grayson’s brain. Even though Damian had to admit that NotGrayson wasn’t all that bright, especially not in comparison to normal Grayson.

“I don’t know if that is such a good idea, Dami. Alfred worked hard on them.”

You could hold a conversation with the fake without giving him orders, but Damian could understand why that wasn’t really an option most of the time: NotGrayson just lived by the last few commands he had been given, until a new one overwrote the older ones. And apparently Pennyworth had been the last to talk to Grayson, telling him to not eat the cookies.

Damian couldn’t even fault the butler for that, knowing that it had probably been a reflex, one very well needed when it came to the Grayson they all knew and loved. The Grayson who was famous for stealing cookies before Pennyworth wanted him to have them.

The Grayson Damian missed with all his heart.

“Of course, you would say that. You are boring like that.”

“Then tell me what I could do to no longer be ‘boring’? I want to make you happy, Dami.”

Normally Damian wouldn’t be caught dead tolerating this horrid nickname, but he knew if he told the imposter to stop using it, he would actually listen. He would listen and never call Damian that again, and even though Damian hated the nickname, he would be sad. So, Damian never said anything when he heard the fake call him that and ignored the shiver of misplaced grief that ran down his spine whenever it happened.

He was better than this.

“You cannot make me happy, imposter, no matter what you do.”

NotGrayson looked stricken, a look of pure shock on his face. A tiny tendril of guilt forced its way into Damian’s heart. He hadn’t wanted to make him sad, he just needed NotGrayson to understand.

“Really?”

“Really. You should just stop trying at all, Grayson. It is worthless.”

No, Damian hadn’t meant it like that, but it was already too late. He had given an order to the imposter; he had forced his will onto someone not allowed to have their own.

“Oh…”

The fake was blinking, as if slightly baffled and Damian had to do something. He had to make sure that he wouldn’t end up like the rest of them, that he didn’t exploit Grayson’s predicament.

“Or you can care for me. I mean, you can try to make me happy. But I can’t make promises. Because right now, you are not succeeding. I am rather unhappy with you and your situation. That’s why I wanted to ease you out of the obligation of having to… to…”

Damian was rambling. He, Damian al’Ghul Wayne, was rambling like a teenage girl with an embarrassing crush. It was a disgrace. It was horrible. Damian could do nothing to stop it, only able to see the train wreck his own words created:

“You are free to want to make me happy. Whatever that means. Just… I am not going to be happy as long as you are like this.”

“Like what?”

NotGrayson’s voice was soft, confusion clear on his face, and Damian wished once again that at least Pennyworth had stayed upstairs with him. He wasn’t cut out for dealing with NotGrayson like that.

“Like this weird submissive clone.”

Damian had an idea. It was a bad idea. A horrible one. One, that could go wrong a hundred different ways, but there was no one here to stop him and Damian was in the mood for horrible decisions. It would go against everything Damian had sworn himself to never do, but maybe that was the price he had to pay. Maybe he had to sacrifice his own values and believes to save Grayson:

“Grayson, I order you to end with this imbecility. I order you to have a free will again, and to regain the ability to say No. I order you to be the Grayson we all love and care for again.”

They were staring at each other, neither of them ever shifting from the position they had inhabited when Damian had started his staring contest what seemed like hours earlier. They stared, and nothing changed. They stared, and Damian could feel hope leaving his body. They stared, and Grayson gave no indication that anything had changed at all.

“Grayson?”

Grayson’s gaze sharpened, his eyes focusing on Damian, his mouth opening to say something, when Damian noticed the blood. The blood seeping through Grayson’s shirt, located above the sigil Damian hated to think about, the blood dripping down Grayson’s nose, slowly leaking out of his ears.

“Grayson!”

And then Grayson’s eyes rolled back, his body falling sideways only to be stopped by the bed he was leaning against.

“Grayson? Richard?”

But Grayson didn’t answer, his body unresponsive, his breathing rough.

Damian had done this. What if Grayson died? No… but Damian had done this. This was his fault. His own stupidity. His own… What if Grayson died???

Damian ran out of his room, in the direction of the Cave. He needed help with this. He needed an adult to tell him that everything would be alright.

“Pennyworth! Father! Pennyworth!”

* * *

Dick woke up with a killer headache. His head vibrated with every thought he had; his heart sent thumps reverberating through his skull every single time it beat. It hurt.

And Dick wasn’t exactly sure what happened.

But when he pried his eyes open, brazing himself against the bright light of the med bay, he was greeted by a concerned Bruce. Next to him were Damian and Alfred, both of them looking rather worried as well.

It would be so much easier if Dick could remember what had happened. The last thing he knew was being sent to Damian’s room for the evening. After that? Static and an even bigger headache.

“Dick, you’re awake. That’s a relief.”

“What happened?”

Wow, his voice sounded rough. It felt rough as well, and Dick didn’t like the unsettled feeling crawling under his skin. Something was different. Something was wrong.

“Damian decided to test the rules of the spell all on his own, without your or my consent.”

“Spell?”

A glimmer of hope danced across Bruce’s face, and Dick had no idea what it was all about. His head was so fuzzy, it hurt so bad, he couldn’t really recall how he should feel. It was weird.

“Richard, raise your arm.”

Alfred’s voice was clear cut, his no-nonsense voice, the one he used when Dick had been a child and liked to climb onto things he wasn’t allowed to climb on. This memory of disobedience left a stale taste on his tongue, and he watched with fascination as his arm rose into the air without Dick ever making the choice of actually doing so.

But it felt right to do it, Dick contemplated. It was hard to say, his head punishing him for every thought he dared to have. But still something was wrong. Something was different. He was just unable to pinpoint it.

“So, the spell isn’t broken.”

There was cold, cold disappointment in Damian’s voice, and a glance confirmed that the boy looked utterly unhappy. But Dick wasn’t sure how he could right this specific wrong. It was as if his head was stopping him from coming up with his own ideas. It felt as if-

“Lay back down, Dick. Relax. We’ll come back later.”

Bruce was disappointed, too, but before Dick could even try to think about it, a wave of relaxation washed over him. It was so easy to sink back onto the gurney, it was so easy to close his eyes and think nothing at all.

It was so easy to ignore the nagging feeling of wrongness when Bruce told him to relax.

* * *

Cass feared that she was the only one who noticed.

The mood in the Manor had been even worse since Damian accidentally almost killed Dick – and it had been horrible to come back from fighting the Joker only to be told that Dick’s heart had stopped for a moment while she was away – but everyone assumed that besides his near death, everything had stayed the same for Dick himself.

But Cass knew better.

She observed him, followed his movements with her eyes and made sure to be aware where he was at any given moment during the day. It wasn’t stalking, not per se, just her making sure that big brother was alright. That _her_ big brother was alright.

And it hadn’t taken long for her to notice things.

Whenever she had had spent time with Dick before his little adventure with Damian, Cass had enjoyed giving him tasks, because it had been easy to see the joy in Dick’s movements when he fulfilled them. Yes, Cass understood why it was morally wrong to use someone without free will, maybe she even knew it better than anyone else in this house, but she was also able to understand how utterly joyful it was to complete a task to your fullest capabilities.

Dick didn’t know that he hated it to be ordered around. He didn’t know that he hated cleaning or drawing or sitting still. Because right now he loved it, especially when someone else gave the command. And Cass wouldn’t go around and deny him happiness just because of some twisted idea of morality and agency.

But that had been before. Before Damian had ordered Dick to be himself again and Dick almost died. That had been before Damian had stopped leaving his room, refusing to talk to anyone.

That had been before.

Now, Cass was able to see different things when she watched Dick complete the orders that fell easier and easier each day from the mouths of the others. It was no longer a ‘Could you maybe sit there and draw for a bit, Dick, please’ now it sounded like ‘Draw, Dick’ or ‘Do the dishes, Richard’ or ‘work through these papers for me, if you please’. And Cass knew that they didn’t mean it like that, she knew that everyone learned a new routine at some point, assimilated to the situation, but it also meant that none of them saw what she saw.

That Dick had stopped enjoying himself.

His movements became stilted for a moment after he was given a command, as if his brain had to decide if it actually wanted to follow along. And then he would do it, always do it, but he was no longer happy about it.

Cass didn’t know what would happen if she decided to not give him an order, if he would still get lost in his own head like before, or if he would be able to choose for himself what he wanted to do. It was hard to find out since no one really left Dick to idle anymore, Bruce hating the lost expression on his face with a passion, Tim being afraid of it. And Alfred… Alfred denied himself any emotion, closing himself off whenever he told Dick to clean the floors or wash the cars. He hated himself, Cass feared, but she had no idea what to do about it.

And ever since she started noticing this, Cass hadn’t had a chance to spend time alone with Dick. He was suddenly so busy, always someone next to him, always someone interfering with her plan to just let him be.

It was unfair, really.

Cass knew that Bruce was working on reversing the spell, on freeing Dick with the help of Zatanna, but she also knew that everyone was so busy working on saving Dick that they didn’t see what was right in front of them

Sometimes it was horribly frustrating to live in a house full of detectives.

Cass was pretty sure that Dick felt the same, his eyes sometimes straying from whatever he was told to busy himself with, just to search for the gaze of someone he knew. He looked lost. As if he wasn’t sure what was going on. As if he was a backseat driver in his own life.

And he was, in a sense, but the Dick from before the incident with Damian had been happy. He had loved to be a puppet on strings. This one was just confused.

And it was on Cass to make sure that that changed. That something happened to make things right again. Because even if Cass was okay with giving happy-obedient Dick orders, she missed firecracker Dick and his endless energies. And she missed their dance recitals and his jokes that were always funny but never on her expanse. She missed her brother, too.

Now she only had to find someone who would listen.

“Bruce?”

“Hn?”

His face was all scrunched up, papers over papers laying in front him. He wasn’t listening. He never listened anymore, not since Jason brought Dick home.

“Bruce”

“Not now, Cassandra”

It was frustrating. All of them had worked so hard on her learning how to properly speak and now they ignored her. Cass had been ignored for long enough in her life. She would make Bruce listen. She would make all of them listen.

It only took one sweep of her arms and everything on Bruce’s desk crashed onto the floor. She definitely had his attention now:

“Cassandra Wayne!”

“It is about Dick.”

“What?!”

He was angry. How lucky then that Cassandra had never been afraid of the Batman.

“It is about Dick. He is different now.”

“I know. That’s why I am trying to fix him.”

Bruce always thought she didn’t understand something when she was just stating the obvious. But a stressed Bruce was a different one to the father she loved. She would forgive him today. Maybe not tomorrow, but today it was okay.

“No. Ever since Damian, Dick is different. He hates following orders now. He is really sad. All the time.”

Cass actually didn’t know that, but it felt like the right thing to say. Like the right thing to ensure that Bruce would act, react. And he did. His back straightened, his eyes finally seeing her instead of an obstacle in his search for help.

“What?”

“He doesn’t want to follow orders anymore. But he still does it. I can see it in his eyes.”

Hope eased his tense muscles and Cass allowed herself a glimpse of it as well. She had done it. She had made Bruce listen. She had made herself heard and she made sure that Dick would get help.

“I am going to call Zatanna right now. Thank you so much, Cass, really.”

She grinned. It always felt good to know that you performed well. That you made others proud.

* * *

They had asked him to come down to the Cave and Dick had complied. He always complied these days.

It was weird. Dick experienced everything through a film of confusion, nothing ever being really clear or present or logical. He knew that he followed every command he was given, but he didn’t know why. He knew that that hadn’t always been the case, but he couldn’t care less to fight against it or figure out what to do differently.

He just went through the motions. Each day a little bit more lost. And it was easy to feel that way if days bled together and time became more of a construct than it already was.

But now they wanted him down in the Cave.

He went.

Zatanna was waiting for him, together with Bruce, Tim and Cass, neither of them happy to be here. Dick had the vague idea that he had seen the magician only recently, but his brain wasn’t any more forthcoming than that. It was annoying as fuck. But at the same time? Being annoyed felt so exhausting. So, so tiring.

“Hi, Dick.”

Zatanna’s smile was as pretty as always, but Dick felt that something was missing. But that wasn’t important. Probably. Instead he smiled back, easily, because that was what you did if you wanted to be polite. And Dick was always polite:

“Hello, Zatanna.”

“Would you please sit down?”

Without hesitation Dick moved onto the gurney she had motioned to. He had no idea why they had asked him to come downstairs, and it was hard to focus on the unsettled feeling bubbling in his stomach when he was ordered to do something. It was always more important to comply than to think. It was always his job to follow before acting on his own.

He knew that. But why did he know that?

“Dnuob lleps llits eh si? tnailpmoc eh si? Eil eht si tahw dna hturt eht si tahw?“

Tendrils of magic twisted around him, touching him, glowing, and returning to Zatanna. The look on her face was complicated when her spell faded. Dick found the frown between her brows to be troubling, and if he was reading the room correctly, so did the rest.

Zatanna was talking to Bruce when she raised her normal voice instead or her magical one:

“I’m gonna have to ask him a few questions first, but I have a theory and I don’t think you’re going to like it…”

“Go on.”

Bruce’s voice was rough. Wasn’t it always rough? Dick really wanted for his brain to work again. For him to know things. For him to be able to think. For him to be able to do things. But at the same time? He wasn’t sure he knew how to anymore.

“Dick, can you look at me?”

His gaze met hers, staring into her waiting eyes, nodding. She smiled at his eagerness and it felt like balm for his nerves.

“Good. I wanted to ask you a question, and it would be great if you answered it truthfully, yes?”

“Okay”

Well, this was weird. Dick answered every question truthfully. But then again, he couldn’t really remember when they had last asked him something.

“Do you know that you are being compelled to do things?”

“Yes.”

He did. He didn’t know why. He didn’t know why he didn’t fight it. He didn’t know why it felt right. But he did know that he followed every order and command.

“Do you enjoy doing it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you know what day it is?”

“No?”

“Do you know what happens if you don’t follow a command?”

“It hurts but I always follow…”

“Do you-?”

The questions never seemed to stop, and Dick felt as if he was caught under a spell, a trance forcing him deeper and deeper into the crevices of his own mind. He could feel a headache coming on, but he was unable to stop answering Zatanna’s questions, unable to ask for a break.

And then she stopped, a sad look on her face.

“Thank you for your help, Dick. You can go now.”

She dismissed him and Dick felt a surge of relieve when he stood up from the gurney, swaying for a moment from the onslaught of emotions. He felt lightheaded when he made his way outside of the Cave, only vaguely hearing Zatanna address Bruce next:

“This is serious, Bruce. You are on a ticking clock here: When Dick’s heart stopped after Damian tried to ‘fix’ him, the sigil started to break. And that means two things: It is easier for us to break it now, but it also means that the dark magic binding him is slowly devouring him from the inside. You have-“

The grandfather clock closed behind him. Dick went to find Alfred; the man would surely be able to tell Dick what he was supposed to do next.

* * *

Jason Todd hated his phone.

He hated it especially when it was 5am and it was the Replacement calling him.

“What the fuck do you want?”

“Hello, Jason, I am also happy to hear from you. How are you doing after you left us alone to deal with your mess?”

“Come to the fucking point or I’ll shoot you the next time I see you.”

“I need you to kill someone for me.”

Jason had to still be dreaming. There was no way in hell Tim had just said what Jason thought he had. No way in hell.

“What?”

“I need you to kill someone. Fast.”

“I… what the fuck, Replacement?”

Jason forced his eyes open, glancing around his safe house just to make sure that no hidden camera was filming his complete lack of cool.

“Remember how you fucked off after you managed to destroy Dick’s life? Nobody besides me figured it out yet. That you weren’t supposed to be there that night.”

“It wasn’t my fucking fault, okay?”

“Yeah, I know, and if you help me now, I’ll make sure that it stays that way.”

Jason had always known that Tim was a hard-ass motherfucker, but it was always a shock to be reminded of that fact. Especially when Jason was forced to deal with it. He knew that Tim was only doing it because he was feeling just as guilty as Jason was. Because Tim had been the one who made Dick spill all of his secrets.

And now Tim wanted to make amends and he needed Jason’s help.

“Okay. Who do you want dead?”

“That magician. The shadow guy who magicked Dick.”

“And how the hell am I supposed to find him?”

“I don’t know, okay? But we have maybe two weeks left before Dick is so irreversibly damaged by the spell that he’s going to die, and I have to make sure that that doesn’t happen...”

“Hold on. Goldie is going to die?”

“Don’t fucking call him that! But yeah… the Demon Brat managed to destroy the sigil enough for Dick to get some… I don’t know… _thought_ back, but he also made sure that the magic previously only bound _to_ his body, was now able to _invade_ it as well. Slowly corrupting him, killing him.”

“What the fuck?”

“Yeah… Zatanna said he had maybe two weeks left. Probably less. It… it is already noticeable. He forgets things, or stares right through you even though you talk to him, he does what you say and even if he doesn’t, he looks as if his head is killing him… pun not intended…”

Jason was wide awake now. Shit. Yeah, he hadn’t been back at the Manor since the incident, but he hadn’t known that it was this bad. That it was this fucked up.

He had trusted in Batman and Co. to find Zatanna or Constantine or someone else and solve this fucked up situation while Jason took care of other things to ease the guilt holding him down. Hence, Jason had been very sad to find out that Tarantula had died when Blüdhaven blew up, and Mirage was back in her own fucked up dimension. Still, the battle with Deathstroke and the stab wound had managed to make Jason feel at least momentarily better.

“But why do you want me to kill him? Why not just find him? I thought you Bats don’t go down this road.”

“You’re a Bat, too, no matter what you say. And I don’t know if it will be enough just to capture the guy. But Zee is pretty sure that the spell vanishes if the caster is dead. And if the question is losing my brother or breaking the code, I will choose my brother every time.”

“Except you’re not going to break it, are you? You ask me to do it for you.”

“Jason…”

“No, I’ll do it. But I want you to think real hard about the implications of what you just said to me, Timmy. Because you might think yourself above such things as killing, but your hands are just as dirty as mine.”

Jason ended the call, just laying there, staring at the ceiling, watching light slowly bleed into the room. It seemed as if there was something he could do after all. It seemed as if they could end this horror show once and for all.

He pushed himself out of bed. He had a killer to kill. A monster to find.

A brother to save.

* * *

There was an unsettled feeling living in his chest, Dick thought.

He could feel it whenever he left his bed behind, or when he was caught unaware by the view from one of the windows. He just wanted to stop then and there and stare.

It was getting harder and harder not just to do that every day.

It helped if he had things to do, if Alfred needed his help, or Cass decided that she wanted to dance. It helped if there were people around even if Dick still hadn’t seen Damian since that horrible headache he got. But that didn’t mean anything anymore.

Next to the slight pinch in his heart, his head was constantly thrumming with thoughts, with pain. He saw flashes of himself swinging across rooftops, saw his laughter, his independence, his wrath. But none of it felt like him, none of it felt like something Dick might do.

They caught him unaware often times, and then he wasn’t in the Manor anymore but in a heated debate with Batman about Damian, or in the middle of a fight with Slade. On one memorable instance, Dick had been on that rooftop together with _her_. He liked none of these imagines, but the last one least of all.

They felt like things that happened to other people. They felt like memories of a time long bygone.

It was easy to wander when those thoughts found him, easy to forget his task, easy for his hands to stop working, for his feet to guide him somewhere else. It was normally a hand that stopped him then. Alfred or Tim or Cass or Bruce with their deep, sad eyes telling him to focus. Telling him to finish what he started.

And he did.

But still, it became harder and harder to do just that, to be more than the flashes of thoughts in his head, to be more than the plummeting nothingness threatening to swallow him whole.

He could feel it on the edge of his conscience now, as he made his way to the kitchen, since Alfred wanted him to sweep the floor. Dick knew it wouldn’t be enough, knew he would get lost on the way there.

Maybe that was why he picked up the phone when it rang while he walked past. Maybe that was why he answered the ‘Pick me! Pick me! Pick me’ of the ringtone:

“Hello? Wayne Manor.”

“Oh! Dick. You’re not the one I thought I’d get. I thought you were on that trip to Indonesia?”

“Commissioner Gordon?”

“Oh, right. I have a reason for calling. Bruce asked me to prepare a list of officers I think would benefit from the Wayne Foundation Sponsorship Against Corruption, and I finished it. He just needs to come by the precinct and get it.”

“Okay…”

“Or… you know what? I haven’t seen you in an awfully long time, boy. Why don’t you come by and we can talk over a cup of coffee about whatever you did since you left the BPD? Sounds good?”

“Sounds great.”

“Well, then: See you soon!”

“Yeah, soon…”

Dick could feel the order settle in his bones, could feel his thoughts getting clearer, his head more focused than it had been in days. He would go to the precinct. Jim Gordon wanted to see him.

Dick made his way to the door. He had something to do. He had somewhere to be.

The commissioner wanted to see him.

* * *

Alfred was making his way to the kitchen to check up on Richard when he saw the telephone receiver laying on the floor next to the phone by the kitchen hallway. A horrible sense of foreboding overcame him:

“Richard? Please answer me, Richard!”

Nothing. And Alfred had already feared that that might be the case. Ever since Miss Zatanna had told them the bad news, Alfred had suffered whenever Richard got that lost look on his face or started wandering off in the middle of a conversation.

It was worrisome and heartbreaking.

It was almost too much for his old heart. He had survived so much, but seeing one of his grandchildren waste away as less and less of him was left each day, was nothing Alfred ever wanted to experience, nothing he wanted to live through.

Just to be sure, Alfred made his way to the kitchen, seeing the broom, but no Richard. It was true then, the phone had distracted him and sent him on his way. This was not good at all, horrible even, especially since Alfred knew that everything could happen to Richard and the boy would just stand by.

God, Alfred missed the very first kid Bruce had ever taken in, missed the puns, the trouble, and the chaos. He even missed the fights, and the yelling, and the tears. He missed the person Richard had been a month prior.

But whining and sighing had never saved anyone before, and Alfred made his way to the telephone, ready to gather as much information as possible before he confronted Bruce with the fact that his son was missing.

It was easy enough to press the return-call button and wait for the person on the other end to pick up:

“Commissioner Gordon, GCPD.”

“Jim, it’s Alfred. Alfred Pennyworth. You called?”

“Oh, hi. Yes, I did. Half an hour ago or something. I talked to Dick though, so…?”

“Can you tell me what exactly you said to Richard?”

“Why?”

There was suspicion in Jim Gordon’s voice now and Alfred couldn’t pain him for it. It was a very suspicious life they all led.

“He is under the influence of mind-altering drugs at the moment – Indonesia didn’t become him – and now I can’t seem to find him anywhere in the Manor.”

“Oh”

Alfred hoped that Richard would be well enough after this endeavor was over, to forgive him for ruining his good name. But Alfred would rather have Richard be alive than with an intact reputation.

“He did seem a bit off when I was talking to him… I asked him if he wanted to come visit the precinct for a cup of coffee. Does that help?”

“A great amount, Jim. There is…”

“Yes?”

“Would it be possible to keep your officers on the look-out for Richard? I am rather worried for him.”

Alfred had never been above using the tools God presented him with, and he knew the Commissioner as a friend and ally. One who would hopefully help even without Alfred explaining everything.

“Sure. They all know what he looks like after all. I’ll keep you updated, okay?”

“That would be perfect, yes. Thank you.”

“No problem. And look after yourself.”

Alfred put the receiver back onto the phone, steeling himself to tell Bruce just what had transpired. Just how dire the situation was. If his hands shook when he knocked on the door to the study, then Alfred decided to ignore that:

“Master Bruce, I fear Richard has gone wandering into the City.”

* * *

Dick didn’t know where he was, he only knew he had no control over the situation whatsoever. He had been going into the city because Gordon wanted to see him, he knew that much.

And then… and then someone had said something about him going elsewhere? He remembered getting turned around after a street vendor yelled “You have to see this!” and then another one telling him to check out this new cinema or the China restaurant or… or…

Dick didn’t recognize the streets he was walking anymore. Whenever he focused too strongly on anything, the headache pulsing behind his eyes would get piercing, the pain mind-numbing and he would stop trying to figure it out.

He just wandered. There were people around him. There was noise, there was information… and Dick just wandered. He didn’t stop and stare, he didn’t try to think, he was just existing.

Why had he left the Manor again? What was he doing here?

Dick didn’t know and with each step he cared less. With each step it was harder to ask these questions.

It was getting darker, streetlight illuminating the city, illuminating each step Dick made into a direction he couldn’t name. To a place he couldn’t find.

And then, suddenly, there was a voice:

“Hey! You! Give me your money!”

There was a person behind him, some loud guy with a weapon in his hand. Dick didn’t struggle when the man forced him into an alley, didn’t struggle when the guy searched for Dick’s wallet. A wallet Dick didn’t have on him, since he hadn’t left the house in… in… Dick didn’t know how long it had been. But long enough for him to no longer carry his wallet.

“I don’t have any money. I promise.”

Maybe that would make the guy calm down, maybe that would be enough.

“Don’t fucking joke! A guy like you has money for sure! These jeans cost a fucking fortune!”

“I can give you my jeans if you want me to?”

Dick was ready to do just that. He didn’t want to fight, and he wasn’t sure he would even be capable of doing so. Giving the man what he wanted seemed like a much better idea anyways.

“Are you making fun of me?”

Dick’s words hadn’t helped it seemed like. Instead they made the man even more angry, even more explosive. Dick didn’t react to the pistol wipe, even though his thoughts cleared for the shortest of moments. He was being mugged. Somewhere in Gotham. Without Back-Up or any money on him to satisfy the mugger.

But already his head was getting foggy again, clouds of compulsion and confusion dragging him down.

“No. I just don’t have any money. But you can have my clothes. If you want.”

“You bastard.”

The man was hitting him again and Dick was unable to do anything to defend himself, the headache keeping him in his place, the feeling of dread making it hard to move at all. He wanted this to be over, even if he had no idea what _this_ even was anymore. His life? The headache? The gun in his face? Who knew? Certainly not Dick.

He wanted to cry and curl up and be safe.

“Asshole! Bastard! I said I wanted your money!”

Had the floor always been this close to his face? Dick could see the tiny gravel covering the alley ground, the trash, and the pungent smell of old bile that was assaulting his nose so strongly it was almost visible as well. There was a thumping noise and it took embarrassingly long for Dick to realize that it was the sound of the man repeatedly kicking Dick in the stomach. It felt so distant, so far away. It didn’t feel as if it was happening to Dick at all. 

“Asshole!”

Dick could hear the sound of a gun being cocked, and the soft whisper of feet touching the ground.

“Get away from him!”

Robin. Damian. Robin. Damian.

Someone had come for him. Someone was here to save him.

That was all Dick needed. He pushed himself upwards, fighting off the nausea and the vertigo. No, he had to get up, he had to fight for himself, he had to… he had to…

“Keep down, you bastard! And you keep away!”

The man in front of him was waving his gun dangerously close to Dick’s face, and for a moment his words were enough to stop Dick, to make him want to keep down, to be compliant, to be submissive, to be a nice little servant boy. His knees were already folding themselves beneath him when he caught a glance of Robin standing on the other side of the alley, his eyes hidden behind a mask, fear and despair still visible on his face.

Robin feared for Dick’s life. Damian didn’t want to see him die.

Well, fuck this. Dick didn’t want to die either.

The world was breaking all around him, the air around him turning into molasses, his thoughts coming slower and slower, every breath a struggle, every millimeter he managed to push himself upwards a win. And then he was moving again, his hand hitting the wrist holding a gun in front of him, the sound of a gunshot escaping reverberating in his ears.

But he had done it. He had defied an order. He had fought and won and…

“Richard!”

Damian was moving past him, punching the guy, knocking him down and out faster than Dick could follow. And then he was in front of him, hugging him and all Dick could do was hug Damian back. Relief made him jittery, his knees shaking so bad that Dick let himself sink down to the floor, taking Damian with him.

“You did it, Grayson, you did it… you won, you’re back…”

Damian was babbling against Dick’s chest, his breath warm against the T-shirt clad body of Dick. Yeah, he hadn’t worn the appropriate clothing when he went outside, had he? He was just in a T-shirt, jeans, and his sneakers, no jacket or scarf. It was weird to notice that now, but Dick was shaking, and he wasn’t sure how much of that was thanks to the constant pressure easing from his heart or because of the night air cooling his skin.

“You… you did it! You fought him off! That’s great, Grayson. You’re alive and well and… Richard?”

Concern had bled back into Damian’s voice, and Dick turned his head, so he was able to see his little brother instead of just touching him. And something in his face must have made it worse, because all color vanished from Robin’s face, and his hand shot forward to touch first Dick’s cheek and then his communicator:

“Robin to Batman. I have found Person D. He is… I think, he is dying. Please… B… you have to hurry…”

Dying? Dick wasn’t dying. He had done everything in his power not to die. He had defied an order to stay alive, he had broken the spell to keep on existing. Why was Damian crying? Why was his kid so sad?

“Da-?”

There was something stuck in his throat, something choking him and when Dick tried to dislodge it, to clear his throat from whatever phlegm was keeping him from breathing freely, he was forced to cough instead. And couldn’t stop.

Tears sprung to his eyes, lids pressed closed from the force of the cough, and his whole body rocked forward when it wouldn’t stop. When one hacking cough got followed by a wet one, when all Dick could do was gasp for breath, trying to get some air.

“Richard. It’s okay. It’s gonna be alright… please, Richard, just try to breathe… okay?”

Damian was whispering calm nothings into his ear, patting his back, holding him upwards when his shaking body wanted him to break. And after a while the coughs subsided, leaving Dick drained, a coppery taste on his tongue.

He forced his eyes open, seeing the red film that laid over everything and wondered: Was this was dying felt like? Was this truly the end?

Dick could barely feel Damian’s body anymore, the bony knees no longer bothering him, only barely registering at all. He was wheezing, he could hear his own breath catch, and it was horrible, but he couldn’t quite quell the relief mixing with the grief.

Yes, Dick wanted to live, he wanted nothing more, but if the question was between his existence of the last few weeks (or had it been months? Dick didn’t know. Dick didn’t know much of anything anymore) and dying? Well, then Dick would choose dying.

Because Dick missed being a person, Dick missed being alive in a people kind of way. But he missed being free even more.

“Richard, you have to stay with me. Just a bit longer. Just a bit more. Batman will be here soon. He will know what to do. He will know how to save you.”

Oh, Dick was sure of that, but his tears were red when they ran down his face, and the copper on his tongue tasted an awful lot like blood. Was he even still breathing? Was he even still alive at all?

There was a sound of tires screeching, the burned smell of rubber so strong in Dick’s nose, that for a moment he allowed himself to play with the idea of surviving, to play with the hope of Batman saving them all.

“Robin. Dick… What is going on?”

“I… There was a stand-off, Richard defied the orders of the gunman, and then… his eyes started bleeding and he started choking, and…”

“It’s okay… It’s okay…”

It wasn’t okay, was it?

“Hey, chum?”

Batman’s voice was so soft, when he lifted Dick’s face so he could look at him. Dick wasn’t sure if he had ever heard Batman talk this softly, but then again: Dick didn’t know all that much anymore, did he? His eyes felt heavy when they followed Batman’s movements, followed the light of the pen shining into them.

He wanted to close them, the light too bright, his eyelids too heavy.

“Stay with me, buddy. Stay with me.”

 _No_. Dick wanted to yell. _No, because I no longer have to follow your orders. No, because I can finally do what I want again. I can want, and do, and die, if I feel like it_. But he didn’t – he didn’t have the strength for it.

Sound surrounded him, another voice joining the mixture of yelling and pleading and pain. It was so, so much. Dick just wanted to sleep. The last few _whatever’s_ had been exhausting. He wasn’t sure of much, but he knew that. Because why else would he be tired like this? Why else would sleep be this attractive? Unconsciousness such a good choice?

“Buddy, I love you, okay? And if you need to go… then just know that I love you, okay? That it’s alright, and I won’t hate you for dying. No, you were so brave this last month. So, so brave. The bravest of us all. And I love you…”

Bruce’s voice was so close, the warmth under him so strong, even with Dick slowly vanishing into the folds of darkness. Even with Dick slowly turning into nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2: Jason is on time  
> Chapter 3: Jason is too late


	2. We Bleed And We Heal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim arrives at the scene and for a moment he thinks he is too late - but he isn't. Jason did what he had to do.   
> If only it would be that easy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!   
> You have chosen ending number 1: Jason is on time!  
> Warnings for this chapter include: Brotherly bonding, panic attacks, some descriptions of blood and weird demonic stuff

_Bruce’s voice was so close, the warmth under him so strong, even with Dick slowly vanishing into the folds of darkness. Even with Dick slowly turning into nothing._

And then everything was pain.

Dick screamed.

* * *

Tim’s feet touched the floor of the alley and for a moment he thought, he was already too late. For a moment all he could see were the tears running down Batman’s face and the shaking shoulders of a Robin made to never cry, and he knew he had been too late.

Jason hadn’t been fast enough.

Dick had died.

And then the screaming started. The previously still form of Tim’s older brother, dressed in clothes and blood, started trashing, started seizing.

Tim couldn’t help but flinch, couldn’t help but take a step back, greeted by the horror that was a loved one convulsing on the floor or a dirty alley. Damian seemed shocked as well, his face losing all pallor, his hands fanatically searching for a weapon, for something to protect himself with.

Only Batman reacted differently. He kept his calm, pressing Dick’s body closer to his chest, trying to keep his son from harming himself even more. There was a precision in his movements, that Tim knew. It was the strict exactness of one motion following the other, which only overcame Batman when he was scared. When he was lost.

When the only thing left to do before one could break down, was to make sure everyone survived.

And Bruce really did try his best. Tim could see from his frozen stance a few feet away, how the muscles in his arms were straining, how Bruce fought to keep the thrashing form of Dick in his lap. But he lost. Dick’s back arched, his bloody eyes flying open, and with yet another yell that tore itself free from his throat, he twisted out of Bruce’s embrace.

Some part of Tim, the one not currently dealing with the horror movie in front of him, told him that they needed to get away. That the police would be here soon. That someone was going to notice the demonic screaming.

But Tim couldn’t do anything. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t call for support. His feet were nailed to the floor, his gaze glued to the convulsing form of his brother, just as Damian seemed transfixed in terror and fear, one hand only a few inches away from Dick's contorted face.

And then it got even worse. The sigil burned into Dick’s chest started glowing, started oozing blood, and Tim wanted to run away. He shouldn’t be forced to watch his brother die. Shouldn’t be forced to see one of his loved ones get torn apart by demonic powers.

The tension in the alley was building, a dark shadow casting everything in dark hues. Only a slight wind was missing, Tim noted, and the horror movie set would be complete. But just as his brain processed his own thoughts, a black miasma started to leak from Dick.

It was bleeding through his T-shirt, covering his eyes and mouth and nose.

It was horrible. It was gruesome. It was… disgusting.

There was barely enough time for Tim to turn around, before the urge to vomit became too strong. His brother was dying, was being torn apart, and Tim was forced to watch, unable to do anything. Unable to be anything but a bystander in this horror show.

Tears were running down Tim’s cheeks, the pungent smell of decay burning his nose, making his eyes sting even worse.

“Richard!”

Damian, it appeared, had forced himself out of the petrification that had imprisoned him previously, reached forward, touching the oily substance covering their brother.

“No!”

Batman returned to motion as well, still efficient, still probably dying inside. Bruce grabbed Damian’s arm, yanking him back. But it was already too late: Damian had touched the black miasma, and together they watched as it started to dissolve on contact with Damian’s skin, leaving only a cloud of fine black dust and a small mark on his fingers behind.

For a moment that was enough to distract them from Dick, from the person that was dying in front of them, but it couldn’t stay that way. They were forced to confront their fears, they were forced to confront this thing that was tearing them apart from the inside out. That was tearing Dick apart.

That was killing one of the best of them.

Tim… wasn’t ready to lose another person. Tim would never ever be ready to lose another person, too caught up in the way he had barely learned to stand again. If he had to live in a world in which yet another loved one had died, Tim wasn’t sure if he was strong enough. If he wanted to be strong enough.

And one glance in the direction of Bruce and Damian, both kneeling so close to Dick and yet too far away to help, told him that they would be irrevocably broken as well. That none of them would ever be the same.

A scream so loud Tim would never be able to stop hearing it, tore itself free from Dick in that moment. It was a scream full of anguish, full of power, full of terror and pain and suffering.

Tim just wanted it to stop.

He wanted it all to stop.

…

His communicator beeped and Tim allowed the transmission, not sure what else he was supposed to do in a situation like this, his eyes never straying from Dick’s body, the black oozing out of it, the arched back and fearfully open eyes, eyes that didn’t see but felt too much.

“Yes?”

“I killed the bitch.”

“Oh…”

“What is that sound?”

But Tim couldn’t answer, hope filling his veins, hope making him feel again, breathe again. And as if Dick had felt the shift in Tim, his body slumped back down, laying still, eyes closed, chest heaving. The black miasma formed a cloud and rose and rose and rose, until Tim wasn’t able to follow it with his eyes anymore.

Light returned to the alley, the grey shadow dampening everything finally gone, and Tim couldn’t believe what he had just seen. What had just happened.

What they had all just lived through.

Batman wasn’t frozen like Tim however, no, he moved forward as soon as the ooze was gone, his hands finding Dick’s pulse point, his gaze focused on the face of the son he had just almost lost. Of the boy he almost had to bury today.

Next to him, Damian pushed forward as well, his tiny children’s hands ghosting over Dick’s face, his hair, his closed eyes. And Tim could see the hope in his shoulders, could see the relief washing Damian’s fear and pain away. And he could feel his own legs giving out beneath him, the pressure of guilt and terror finally being lifted, the relief so strong that Tim was sobbing.

“Replacement! What the fuck was that sound?”

“He’s alive…”

“What?”

“Dick… He’s alive… we did it… we saved him…”

And that they did. Tim watched Bruce give the okay, call the Batmobile, and wondered if he would ever have to pay the price. If he would ever be forced to confront the fact that he had broken the Code to save Dick. That he had considered what not even Batman was capable or willing to do and did it.

If one day he would have to face the consequences of what Jason and he just did.

But looking at the steady rise and fall of Dick’s chest, Tim couldn’t particularly care. He had saved his brother. _He had saved his brother_.

Wasn’t that enough?

* * *

Dick’s whole body was throbbing, his head worst of all.

He felt like shit. Like chewing gum being spit out and eaten by a dog. Like dirt. Like… like himself.

His eyes flew open, ignoring the blinding white light of the med bay (something he had told Bruce a million times to fix) and forced himself upright. His whole family was standing around the gurney, varying degrees of relief and love on their faces.

He was awake. He was alive. He… he had thoughts. And feelings. And… and so much more.

“Hey, Dickface, raise your arm.”

“Fuck you to hell, Jason”

“Yeah, he’s back.”

And suddenly there was laughter filling the air. Dick knew he wasn’t imagining the tears running down Alfred’s face or the suspect wetness in the corner of Bruce’s, but it all felt so unreal.

He was assaulted from all sides, with feelings and thoughts and memories and pain. His head was a mess, a headache thrumming along with every sound a member of his family made, and yet Dick felt more alive than he had ever before.

He… he wasn’t bound to orders or happiness anymore. He could say No. He could tell them to fuck off. He could fight again.

He could be Dick Grayson again. And Nightwing-

He… the possibilities were endless.

And yet, there wasn’t only relief burning through his veins. There was something else as well: Horror. Deep seated horror at all the things that had happened the last few weeks. Dick’s memories were spotty at best, just glimpses of being ordered around, ideas of what might have happened, impressions of a feeling so lost Dick wanted to cry.

He felt violated. By his own family.

He loved them. He loved them so, so much, but all his brain could think about was Tim forcing things from him (And what? It seemed important. It was important. But what?), Damian breaking him, Bruce and Alfred just… telling him what to do, not seeing him… all he could remember was someone else using his body, someone taking his autonomy and his free will and pushing it through a shredder until there was nothing left that resembled Dick.

He wanted to throw up.

And his retching seemed to finally free his family from the idea that all was well. No, it reminded them that they might have gotten Dick Grayson back, but they didn’t yet know how much of him.

“Dick? Buddy? Everything alright?”

No, nothing was alright. Dick just felt worse with Bruce’s arm on his shoulder, with touch enclosing on his space.

“Don’t touch me.”

In a matter of seconds, Bruce had stepped away, giving him space and Dick was so, so grateful for that, even if he simultaneously hated himself for feeling grateful just because Bruce had shown him human decency. Dick wanted to be alone. He wanted to see everyone at once.

He wanted to never be touched again. And to be the center of a giant group hug.

He wanted for his head to make sense again, and for his mind to be able to enjoy the freedom again.

He was his own master again. He was Dick Grayson again, Nightwing, a hero.

But it was too much. Tears were streaming down his face, and he could only gasp for air. It was so warm, so many options, so many people, and Dick didn’t know what to do. What to think. What to say.

He just wanted everything to be normal again.

He wanted his life back. He wanted control back. Security.

The feeling that his own body belonged to him. And only to him.

(Not that he had that feeling _before_ , but he could wish, couldn’t he? He could want)

“Step back! He is having a panic attack.”

“Yeah, no shit, Sherlock”

“Not now, Jason. Hey, chum?”

Bruce was in front of him. Again. And Dick pried his eyes open to look at him – when had he closed them? – only to see the deep worry scrunching up Bruce’s entire face. Dick wanted to joke about it, tell his dad that he would get old faster if he always frowned like that, but Dick didn’t have the strength.

“It’s okay. I’m not gonna touch you. None of us will until you tell us to. And… and I can’t even imagine what is going on in your head right now, how overwhelming everything currently is, but you are allowed to take your time. You are allowed to feel and hate and rage… and to need space.”

There was so much emotion inside of him and Dick just wanted to get lost. To sort through his memories, to figure out just where everything had gone wrong.

And, yeah, Dick needed space for that. He needed his apartment, his coffee, and a spreadsheet helping him make sense of the world again.

“I hate you all so much right now. I mean, I love you like crazy, but I can’t stand to see any of your faces.”

“Okay”

And maybe it was okay. Maybe Dick was allowed to sob and tell them how much he hated them, how much he loved them. Maybe it was okay not to be okay.

* * *

Jason found Nightwing sitting on a Blüdhaven rooftop a month later. A month without contact, without a big brother bothering all of them with his love. It had been a fucking boring month. A sad one as well.

And Dick hadn’t even told them that he wanted to see them again, but Jason had felt the need to reach out anyway. Had felt the need to tell Dick that not everything was shitty. That he was loved. That the family felt like shit and that they needed Dick as well.

That their family was a toxic symbiont, none of them capable of existing without the other.

“Nightwing.”

“Red Hood.”

Dick gave no indication of surprise, instead just motioning for Jason to take a seat next to him, both their legs dangling over the streets a 100ft below. Jason had come prepared, a six-pack of beer under his arm as a peace offering. He pushed one of them in Dick’s direction before opening his own:

“Here”

“Thanks. But I can’t say I remember inviting you here.”

“You didn’t”

“Yeah, I know.”

There was no real heat in Dick’s voice, just tired resignation. Just the exhaustion of one too many nights without back-up.

“I… I wanted to say sorry. For that night that got us in this whole mess.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“Yeah, but…”

“Jason, let me tell you something really weird and shitty: The worst part about all of this, is realizing that none of you are at fault.”

Jason couldn’t quite swallow his surprise, the beer in his hands almost toppling down the building.

“Huh?”

“You came to warn me. Tim wanted to prove a point. Bruce was in Batman mode trying to help. Damian wanted his big brother back. Cass thought she was helping and Alfred as well. It wasn’t your fault. Which makes it so hard, because I am so, so angry.”

“At me?”

“Kind of. At all of you. I would tear Tim apart if I saw him right now and that isn’t fair. Not to him and not to me.”

Jason looked at his brother then and saw the sickly pallor of his skin, the hatred burning in his eyes, and realized that nobody had ever taught Dick how to deal with trauma. How to deal with the less pretty emotions that came with surviving. Hell, nobody had taught Jason either, but life had tried its best in teaching him anyway:

“Dickie. You are absolutely allowed to be angry. Your agency was stolen from you for over a month. You were forced to do things you would never do otherwise by people who thought they did what was best for you. And maybe they did. But they also hurt you doing it. They also violated and used you.”

“Yeah, I know that.”

“Maybe, but you don’t believe it…”

Silence fell over the both of them, Jason watching Blüdhaven show its ugly side. He would never understand why Nightwing chose this city of all places. Why Dick saw Blüdhaven as something worth saving.

“I killed him by the way…”

“What?”

“Magic guy. Hated you because of some fucked-up prophecy. I didn’t really care. But Timmers told me to kill him, so I did.”

“I…”

“That’s why you survived. At least Tim thinks so. But, yeah, I killed him for you. And for Tim. And a little bit for me as well… Hell, I bet Damian and Alfred would have been happy enough to help me do it.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

That was the question, wasn’t it? Maybe because Dick was the one person who deserved to hear it all. Maybe because Jason needed to hear validation or absolution. Maybe because moping and secrets had already destroyed too many relationships in this family.

“Because everyone always just talks _about_ you, and never _with_ you. And that sucks. To always be the topic of conversation, but never the one allowed to participate. So, I thought, why not tell you.”

“Okay?”

Dick sounded lost, and not even Jason’s cheerful attempt at clinking their beer bottles together helped. Why would it? Jason had honestly no idea why he had come here in the first place. He just knew that Gotham needed Nightwing. That the little brats needed their brother to tell them it would be okay again.

“And… this isn’t my place, it really isn’t, but… Damian didn’t hear what you said. He knows none of your secrets. As far as I’m aware none of the others told him. And the rest of us are trying to forget them as best as we can…”

“Why…?”

One glance in Dick’s face told him that his brother was honestly asking that. That Dick didn’t know why they tried to respect this part of his history, why they didn’t hate him for it.

“We’re all vigilantes, Dickie. We all lead fucked up lives. Have trauma. Have secrets. Have horrible burdens we alone carry, because we are dumb as fuck when it comes to sharing stuff. And you? You had no choice but to share. No choice at all. And I think every one of us remembered situations over situations that we would have spilled.”

Dick was looking at him now, something contemplating in his face, something thoughtful.

“And we felt the horror of being forced to tell our secrets without consent. Replacement is out of his mind with worry. Bruce too, but he is a constipated asshole, so who cares. But… I think, all of us – and it’s weird to hear me say this – but all of us are doing our best in ignoring that shit until you are ready to talk about it.”

“Hah. Is this Jason Peter Todd telling _me_ to go back and play happy family? Who would have thought that this was possible?”

There was something sardonic in Dick’s laughter, but Jason could see the tears as well. And maybe it was time for one last truth. One, Jason wasn’t sure would make anything better. One, that did probably nothing to make Dick feel more loved. But one that was true nonetheless:

“I mean, we were all kind of forced to confront the fact that we like to take you for granted. That Dick Grayson the Golden Boy is there and caring and perfect. But you are neither of these things. You are human. You are one of us. And it was a punch in the face for us to realize that. To realize that we weren’t just hurting ourselves with this pedestal we put you on, but that we hurt you as well.”

“And?”

“And I think it made us realize how much we needed you. The real you. The fucking annoying, head-strong brother, who is always ready to throw down or hug you, depending on the situation. We need you.”

“Yeah, I need you, too. And you are an asshole, making me emotional so I come back and deal with shit. Not cool. Not cool at all…”

“Is it working?”

“Maybe… just not today. I want to be angry for a bit longer…”

There was longing in Dick’s gaze as he looked across the city and Jason knew that Dick wanted to fly. That Dick was dreaming of a world in which he was still allowed to exist as himself, as a version of himself that still knew what it felt like to be in control.

“I mean, go for it. Take your time. I’m the last person to tell you how long it should take to get over your rage issues. I kicked a dude in front of a car last week because he called me ‘condom head’.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“Yes”

“And now fuck off.”

Jason did, leaving his brother behind, leaving Blüdhaven behind, with the distinct feeling that they would be okay again someday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed it!   
> Feedback is more than welcome! <3


	3. We Bleed And We Die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason is too late and Tim is forced to watch his brother die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!   
> You have chosen Ending 2: Jason is too late!  
> Warnings for this chapter: Major Character Death, Dissociation   
> (And go read Ending 1 when you are done to get some comfort because this has none)

Tim couldn’t believe his eyes; he couldn’t grasp just what he was seeing.

He had arrived at the location of Damian’s emergency beacon and came up short.

His little brother was sitting next to an unconscious crook, his eyes wide behind the mask, his entire body shaking, blood visible on his clothes, on his hands. Bruce was in front of him, Batman cradling the limp form of Tim’s oldest brother against his chest, whispering love filled promises and pleads into his ear. Judging by the pale color or Dick’s face, the listless glaze covering his eyes, the bloody tear tracks down his face, Dick wasn’t really capable of listening anymore. Wasn’t really there anymore to hear Bruce tell him how much he loved him. That it was okay. That it would be alright. That Dick was allowed to die.

Tim couldn’t quite… understand what was happening in front of him. Couldn’t understand how Dick could be dying – might already be dead – if Tim had done everything to make sure he would survive. They were supposed to still have a week. Tim had counted on that week. He had needed it. Jason-

In front of him Dick hiccupped, and for a moment Tim dared to hope, saw the fear in Bruce’s stance, before he realized it for was it was: A last effort of Dick’s body to keep on breathing. Dick’s last grasp of air before everything would be over.

“I love you. I love you. I love you. It’s alright. You’re doing great. You are… so brave. So strong. I am really proud of you… I hope you know that… I hope you know how much I love you…”

Bruce was crying. Batman was crying. And, of course, Tim knew that Bruce cried, but to see Batman, his hero, his last defense, break down with shaking shoulders and a voice barely above a whisper, told Tim that this was real. That Dick was dying. That Dick was dead.

Damian’s little form pressing itself against Bruce, against the bloody body of Dick, didn’t make it any better. Tim could just stand there, watch, as his world broke apart. As another hero was taken. Another loved one was gone.

He didn’t know when exactly Dick died, but he knew that at one point Bruce stopped cradling the corpse of his son against his chest, Damian stopped burying his face in the bloodied hair of his favorite person, and time returned to the alley they were all hiding in.

Time returned to Tim who stood frozen still, overwhelmed by tears and a guilt he couldn’t quite grasp.

“I wished it was me…”

“What?”

“I wished it was me… back in the beginning… because I thought being ordered around had to better than to live through the pain of constant depression and anxiety… Oh, God… Oh, god… no… I…”

This was too real. Too much. Too deep.

Tim couldn’t deal with this, couldn’t stand by and face the disappointment on Bruce’s face, couldn’t face the corpse of his brother, the corpse of the man who had saved his life more times than Tim could count. Yeah, they fought. But all of them fought, constantly. It was their job!

And now… now Tim would never get to fight with Dick ever again, would never cry together with his big bro while watching Disney movies, would never hug him so hard that Dick joked about Tim breaking his ribs because… because Dick was gone.

Dick was dead.

The comm unit in his hear beeped, a single line, a single transmission coming through:

“The bitch is dead”

Jason.

Too late.

Tim had made him kill and it didn’t even safe Dick’s life. Tim had sullied himself, had dirtied Jason, had paid the price not even Bruce was willing to pay and it had all been for nothing. It had all been worthless.

The floor vanished under him, Tim falling down next to Bruce, next to his dad who was still just looking at him, still not comprehending what Tim had said, not really understanding yet that Dick was dead, and guilt was eating Tim alive.

“I’m so sorry… I’m so sorry… Bruce…”

Tim couldn’t believe that his voice was still working, that words were audible through the pain of the sobs tearing his body apart, but they were, and Bruce was looking at him still, eyes a million years away, tears streaming down a Cowl-clad face.

“Why are you sorry, Drake? You weren’t the one to kill him…”

Damian. Tim had forgotten that Damian was here, that the brat had just watched his favorite brother die. That Damian was just as frozen, just as hurt as he was. That Damian was just as much corroded by guilt.

What happened next? What did you do if the one person in the world you trusted to never leave you, died? What did you do if it was the sticky glue holding you all together that just vanished one day, leaving nothing put grief and guilt in its wake?

Because Tim felt guilty. He felt guilty for wishing it had been him. For making Dick spill his secrets before he died. For being too slow. For not doing enough. For not _being_ enough to save Dick’s life.

“Yeah, but neither were you…”

He didn’t want to say these words. He wanted to yell at Damian, to tell him that Yes, it was all the fault of the Demon Brat, but at the same time he… he couldn’t. He couldn’t take the easy way out. He couldn’t let Damian bear the guilt just because Tim wasn’t strong enough to do so himself.

“But I might as well have…”

There was something so lost in Damian’s voice, something so utterly, utterly sad that for a moment Tim feared that Damian would die too. That Damian would be the next to go and get killed, the next to leave this family behind. And Tim… couldn’t let that happen. Couldn’t let Damian go no matter how much they fought.

“No.”

Bruce sounded broken. He sounded old, and not only his voice carried the added age of another boy dying in his arms, but his eyes did as well. Tim could feel the weight of Bruce’s gaze sweep over him, even through the lenses of the Cowl, and knew that Bruce would never be the same.

None of them would ever be the same.

“It isn’t your fault. And it isn’t yours either, Damian. It isn’t Dick’s and it isn’t Jason’s and… and it isn’t mine no matter how much it hurts, no matter how much I want a culprit I can grasp and punish and… and hurt…”

He was still crying. Tim’s dad was still crying, his tears falling onto the drawn face of what had once been Dick Grayson, washing white rivers into a sea of dried blood. Batman was crying for Nightwing, Bruce for his son, and Tim and Damian let their tears fall as well, spilling guilt and sorrow into their laps.

“But Dick is dead… and… and as much as I want to, I can’t let this destroy us… I can’t let you go as well. I can’t lose you just because you feel guilty… I don’t want that… and I know for sure that Dick would have never wanted that as well…”

It was over. It was done.

Dick Grayson had died, and he had taken a part of his family with him. A part of Tim and his worth. A part of Damian and his trust. A part of Jason and his strength. A part of Cass and her energy. A part of Bruce… and his _heart_.

Dick Grayson was dead, and Tim would have to learn how to survive like that.

Tim would have to learn how to live with the guilt of not being enough.

“Tim? Replacement? Answer me! What is going on?”

And by the looks of it, Jason and Damian would have to learn it as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so, so much for reading! I love feedback! And I love you! <3  
> I hope you enjoyed this pain ride!

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter 2: Jason is on time  
> Chapter 3: Jason is too late


End file.
